CM orders action over embarrassingly low utilisation of funds

Karachi

The Sindh chief minister has called for action against all departments that failed to utilise their yearly budget as he laid out guidelines for the next annual development programme (ADP 2016-17) at a review meeting on Wednesday.

Presiding over a joint meeting of the Planning and Development and Finance departments at the CM House, Qaim Ali Shah directed the Sindh chief secretary to hold a meeting with the concerned officers and recommend action against the departments with under-utilised budget allocations. 

As the meeting participants discussed new budget strategies, Senior Minister for Finance Syed Murad Ali Shah said  the provincial ADP for the current financial year was Rs142 billion, district ADP was Rs20 billion, Viability Gap Fund (VGF) Rs15 billion, foreign aided projects at Rs26.985 billion and federal PSDP was Rs9.664 billion. The total development portfolio of the province, he said, came to over Rs213 billion.

This was followed by Additional Chief Secretary (Development) Mohammad Waseem sharing some startlingly low figures of utilisation by certain departments. 

He pointed out that the Auqaf, Zakat and Religious Affairs departments have utilised Rs34.949 million against the released Rs226.3 million, which constitutes 15 percent utilisation. Similarly, the Excise and Taxation department has utilised only three percent of its uplift budget; the finance department had released Rs30.66 million, against which the department utilised only Rs977,000.  

Waseem added that the health department had a substantial allocation of Rs13 billion against which Rs10.2 billion had been released. The utilisation, however, stands at Rs2.37 million, which comes to 23 percent, he stated. 

The Information Technology Department had also failed to utilise its released funds of Rs120.97 million, with its total utilisation standing at Rs1.667 million - hardly one percent. The Katchi Abadis department was another that failed to utilise its released funds of Rs43.5 million, and its utilisation was said to have been zero percent.

Waseem also pointed out that the social welfare department had utilised only 12 percent funds, special education department (zero), mines and mineral (seven percent), labour department (18 percent), and livestock too stood at 18 percent.   However, he also said the finance department had released 100 percent of the finances allocated for 392 schemes and they would be completed by June 2016. 

He claimed that by the end of June this year, a total of 577 schemes would be completed. On this, the chief minister expressed his displeasure and asked the chief secretary to call the concerned officers and get them explanation about their failure and then suggest action against them.